Trying to get this thing set up with a comments area directly below the poem/whatever. See what this does...Yep, it works. Henceforth post comments directly to the individual pieces.

Another old one

Batter Up

I don't worry about the orbit
of the earth around the sun
or the angle of approach of
ultra-violet rays through gone layers
of filtering ozone.

Bacteria billions of years old,
found in rock flung through space
from other worlds have been made motile
in labs. Life goes on no matter what,

and we smile around corners and dream
of days before sweet madness raked our minds,
days after it caught us in nets of barbed wire pleasure.

There is no melancholy moment more harsh that the
one reserved for the moment we kiss heaven,
nor a day grander than that spewed like lava love
from the jaws of the grand beast master.

We slide behind the eight ball with beer and bad news,
waiting for more than Godot.

I just want sanity here on the edge of madness. I want
to howl like the wolf in the sage, bleed like the gut-shot buffalo,
throw my bones over hard cliffs and beat high falls.

I need the sweet curve on the outside corner and
at least a walk, but I'm leaning in the wind
looking for the fence.

with luck I've already found it.

An early war poem:

the anger of men

i wonder at the anger of men
and at my own anger, the raw
red beast astride my heart.

i wonder if killing the evil
will satiate the need i have
for vengeance, or if it will only
leave a gaping hole,

if the missing focus of
our collective pain became
a limp mass of bones and
bloody heart torn in
some afghan gully.

perhaps the object of
our hatred is of more use
alive, for he keeps the
fire burning brightly inside.

his long brown face
awash in animation makes
the rage flow, feeds the pain
necessary to justify what
must be done.

someday when all the holes
have been burnt in the last
earthen masses, when all
those deemed too malignant
to live have been pushed
beyond this realm,

when the final body riddled
and blackned has slide like
a gambler's last dollar down
torn embankments, red on brown
beneath a mute blue sky,

someday the few will wonder
at the anger of men and feel
no sense of loss, just the
cool kiss of wind beneath
peaceful skies,

no smoking contrails writing
doom in heaven.

NOTE: I don't know if any of you folks are using the Google toolbar. If you are, you can blog directly off it to this site from anywhere you happen to be. It's real handy.

Yeah, I like this latest series, Ben, good work. I sense some very relevant images to what's happening in the world in these, esp. the last two "card" poems.